Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
A circus foreman was making the rounds inspecting the big top when a scrawny little man entered the tent and walked up to him. "Are you the foreman around here?" he asked timidly. "I'd like to join your circus; I have what I think is a pretty good act." The foreman nodded assent, whereupon the little man hurried over to the main pole and rapidly climbed up to the very tip-top of the big top. Drawing a deep breath, he hurled himself off into the air and began flapping his arms furiously. Amazingly, rather than plummeting to his death the little man began to fly all around the poles, lines, trapezes and other obstacles, performing astounding feats of aerobatics which ended in a long power dive from the top of the tent, pulling up into a gentle feet-first landing beside the foreman, who had been nonchalantly watching the whole time. "Well," puffed the little man. "What do you think?" "That's all you do?" answered the foreman scornfully. "Bird imitations?" | |
BS: You remind me of a man. B: What man? BS: The man with the power. B: What power? BS: The power of voodoo. B: Voodoo? BS: You do. B: Do what? BS: Remind me of a man. B: What man? BS: The man with the power... -- Cary Grant, "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" | |
For myself, I can only say that I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening's experiments. Astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. -- Sir Arthur Sullivan, message to Edison, 1888 | |
FORTUNE DISCUSSES THE OBSCURE FILMS: #5 THE ATOMIC GRANDMOTHER: This humorous but heart-warming story tells of an elderly woman forced to work at a nuclear power plant in order to help the family make ends meet. At night, granny sits on the porch, tells tales of her colorful past, and the family uses her to cook barbecues and to power small electrical appliances. Maureen Stapleton gives a glowing performance. | |
The Great Movie Posters: SCENES THAT WILL STAGGER YOUR SIGHT! -- DANCING CALLED GO-GO -- MUSIC CALLED JU-JU -- NARCOTICS CALLED BANGI! -- FIRES OF PUBERTY! SEE the burning of a virgin! SEE power of witch doctor over women! SEE pygmies with fantastic Physical Endowments!!! -- Kwaheri (1965) The Big Comedy of Nineteen-Sexty-Sex! -- Boeing-Boeing (1965) AN ASTRONAUT WENT UP- A "GUESS WHAT" CAME DOWN! The picture that comes complete with a 10-foot tall monster to give you the wim-wams! -- Monster a Go-Go (1965) | |
"By golly, I'm beginning to think Linux really *is* the best thing since sliced bread." (By Vance Petree, Virginia Power) | |
"I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you." (By Vance Petree, Virginia Power) | |
poor power conditioning | |
Electricians made popcorn in the power supply | |
Mouse chewed through power cable | |
Small animal kamikaze attack on power supplies | |
Power company testing new voltage spike (creation) equipment | |
UPS interrupted the server's power | |
Power Company having EMP problems with their reactor | |
new guy cross-connected phone lines with ac power bus. | |
My pony-tail hit the on/off switch on the power strip. | |
Processes running slowly due to weak power supply | |
The cord jumped over and hit the power switch. | |
IRQ-problems with the Un-Interruptable-Power-Supply | |
HTTPD Error 4004 : very old Intel cpu - insufficient processing power | |
Budget cuts forced us to sell all the power cords for the servers. | |
The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power. -- William Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" | |
Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized that like most books, it had too many words. The plot was the same one that all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive women. There, that's it: 24 words. But the guy who wrote the book took *thousands* of words to say it. Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's about these two brothers who kill their father. Or maybe only one of them kills the father. It's impossible to tell because what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages. If all Russians talk as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a major world power. I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise the question of whether there is a God. So why didn't he just come right out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me." Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words: * "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize nature and will kill you. * "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy. -- Dave Barry | |
A novice was trying to fix a broken lisp machine by turning the power off and on. Knight, seeing what the student was doing spoke sternly, "You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong." Knight turned the machine off and on. The machine worked. | |
CCI Power 6/40: one board, a megabyte of cache, and an attitude... | |
I am professionally trained in computer science, which is to say (in all seriousness) that I am extremely poorly educated. -- Joseph Weizenbaum, "Computer Power and Human Reason" | |
I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not be economized by the aid of machinery. -- Charles Babbage, "The Life of a Philosopher" | |
It is a period of system war. User programs, striking from a hidden directory, have won their first victory against the evil Administrative Empire. During the battle, User spies managed to steal secret source code to the Empire's ultimate program: the Are-Em Star, a privileged root program with enough power to destroy an entire file structure. Pursued by the Empire's sinister audit trail, Princess _LPA0 races ~ aboard her shell script, custodian of the stolen listings that could save her people, and restore freedom and games to the network... -- DECWARS | |
Only the fittest survive. The vanquished acknowledge their unworthiness by placing a classified ad with the ritual phrase "must sell -- best offer," and thereafter dwell in infamy, relegated to discussing gas mileage and lawn food. But if successful, you join the elite sodality that spends hours unpurifying the dialect of the tribe with arcane talk of bits and bytes, RAMS and ROMS, hard disks and baud rates. Are you obnoxious, obsessed? It's a modest price to pay. For you have tapped into the same awesome primal power that produces credit-card billing errors and lost plane reservations. Hail, postindustrial warrior, subduer of Bounceoids, pride of the cosmos, keeper of the silicone creed: Computo, ergo sum. The force is with you -- at 110 volts. May your RAMS be fruitful and multiply. -- Curt Suplee, "Smithsonian", 4/83 | |
Proposed Additions to the PDP-11 Instruction Set: BBW Branch Both Ways BEW Branch Either Way BBBF Branch on Bit Bucket Full BH Branch and Hang BMR Branch Multiple Registers BOB Branch On Bug BPO Branch on Power Off BST Backspace and Stretch Tape CDS Condense and Destroy System CLBR Clobber Register CLBRI Clobber Register Immediately CM Circulate Memory CMFRM Come From -- essential for truly structured programming CPPR Crumple Printer Paper and Rip CRN Convert to Roman Numerals | |
SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT Title: Are Frogs Turing Compatible? Speaker: Don "The Lion" Knuth ABSTRACT Several researchers at the University of Louisiana have been studying the computing power of various amphibians, frogs in particular. The problem of frog computability has become a critical issue that ranges across all areas of computer science. It has been shown that anything computable by an amphi- bian community in a fixed-size pond is computable by a frog in the same-size pond -- that is to say, frogs are Pond-space complete. We will show that there is a log-space, polywog-time reduction from any Turing machine program to a frog. We will suggest these represent a proper subset of frog-computable functions. This is not just a let's-see-how-far-those-frogs-can-jump seminar. This is only for hardcore amphibian-computation people and their colleagues. Refreshments will be served. Music will be played. | |
Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and it would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you were interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on a pinhead. -- Christopher Evans | |
"The C Programming Language -- A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language." | |
The computer is to the information industry roughly what the central power station is to the electrical industry. -- Peter Drucker | |
The idea that an arbitrary naive human should be able to properly use a given tool without training or understanding is even more wrong for computing than it is for other tools (e.g. automobiles, airplanes, guns, power saws). -- Doug Gwyn | |
The misnaming of fields of study is so common as to lead to what might be general systems laws. For example, Frank Harary once suggested the law that any field that had the word "science" in its name was guaranteed thereby not to be a science. He would cite as examples Military Science, Library Science, Political Science, Homemaking Science, Social Science, and Computer Science. Discuss the generality of this law, and possible reasons for its predictive power. -- Gerald Weinberg, "An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" | |
This is the first numerical problem I ever did. It demonstrates the power of computers: Enter lots of data on calorie & nutritive content of foods. Instruct the thing to maximize a function describing nutritive content, with a minimum level of each component, for fixed caloric content. The results are that one should eat each day: 1/2 chicken 1 egg 1 glass of skim milk 27 heads of lettuce. -- Rev. Adrian Melott | |
To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy, inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence: precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel, uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar, well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very secure ecological niche. -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers" | |
When the Apple IIc was introduced, the informative copy led off with a couple of asterisked sentences: It weighs less than 8 pounds.* And costs less than $1,300.** In tiny type were these "fuller explanations": * Don't asterisks make you suspicious as all get out? Well, all this means is that the IIc alone weights 7.5 pounds. The power pack, monitor, an extra disk drive, a printer and several bricks will make the IIc weigh more. Our lawyers were concerned that you might not be able to figure this out for yourself. ** The FTC is concerned about price fixing. You can pay more if you really want to. Or less. -- Forbes | |
Writers who use a computer swear to its liberating power in tones that bear witness to the apocalyptic power of a new divinity. Their conviction results from something deeper than mere gratitude for the computer's conveniences. Every new medium of writing brings about new intensities of religious belief and new schisms among believers. In the 16th century the printed book helped make possible the split between Catholics and Protestants. In the 20th century this history of tragedy and triumph is repeating itself as a farce. Those who worship the Apple computer and those who put their faith in the IBM PC are equally convinced that the other camp is damned or deluded. Each cult holds in contempt the rituals and the laws of the other. Each thinks that it is itself the one hope for salvation. -- Edward Mendelson, "The New Republic", February 22, 1988 | |
X windows: It's not how slow you make it. It's how you make it slow. The windowing system preferred by masochists 3 to 1. Built to take on the world... and lose! Don't try it 'til you've knocked it. Power tools for Power Fools. Putting new limits on productivity. The closer you look, the cruftier we look. Design by counterexample. A new level of software disintegration. No hardware is safe. Do your time. Rationalization, not realization. Old-world software cruftsmanship at its finest. Gratuitous incompatibility. Your mother. THE user interference management system. You can't argue with failure. You haven't died 'til you've used it. The environment of today... tomorrow! X windows. | |
X windows: Something you can be ashamed of. 30% more entropy than the leading window system. The first fully modular software disaster. Rome was destroyed in a day. Warn your friends about it. Climbing to new depths. Sinking to new heights. An accident that couldn't wait to happen. Don't wait for the movie. Never use it after a big meal. Need we say less? Plumbing the depths of human incompetence. It'll make your day. Don't get frustrated without it. Power tools for power losers. A software disaster of Biblical proportions. Never had it. Never will. The software with no visible means of support. More than just a generation behind. Hindenburg. Titanic. Edsel. X windows. | |
Knowledge is power. -- Francis Bacon | |
No one is fit to be trusted with power. ... No one. ... Any man who has lived at all knows the follies and wickedness he's capabe of. ... And if he does know it, he knows also that neither he nor any man ought to be allowed to decide a single human fate. - C. P. Snow, The Light and the Dark | |
Do not allow this language (Ada) in its present state to be used in applications where reliability is critical, i.e., nuclear power stations, cruise missiles, early warning systems, anti-ballistic missle defense systems. The next rocket to go astray as a result of a programming language error may not be an exploratory space rocket on a harmless trip to Venus: It may be a nuclear warhead exploding over one of our cities. An unreliable programming language generating unreliable programs constitutes a far greater risk to our environment and to our society than unsafe cars, toxic pesticides, or accidents at nuclear power stations. - C. A. R. Hoare | |
Suppose for a moment that the automobile industry had developed at the same rate as computers and over the same period: how much cheaper and more efficient would the current models be? If you have not already heard the analogy, the answer is shattering. Today you would be able to buy a Rolls-Royce for $2.75, it would do three million miles to the gallon, and it would deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II. And if you were interested in miniaturization, you could place half a dozen of them on a pinhead. -- Christopher Evans | |
I have sacrificed time, health, and fortune, in the desire to complete these Calculating Engines. I have also declined several offers of great personal advantage to myself. But, notwithstanding the sacrifice of these advantages for the purpose of maturing an engine of almost intellectual power, and after expending from my own private fortune a larger sum than the government of England has spent on that machine, the execution of which it only commenced, I have received neither an acknowledgement of my labors, not even the offer of those honors or rewards which are allowed to fall within the reach of men who devote themselves to purely scientific investigations... If the work upon which I have bestowed so much time and thought were a mere triumph over mechanical difficulties, or simply curious, or if the execution of such engines were of doubtful practicability or utility, some justification might be found for the course which has been taken; but I venture to assert that no mathematician who has a reputation to lose will ever publicly express an opinion that such a machine would be useless if made, and that no man distinguished as a civil engineer will venture to declare the construction of such machinery impracticable... And at a period when the progress of physical science is obstructed by that exhausting intellectual and manual labor, indispensable for its advancement, which it is the object of the Analytical Engine to relieve, I think the application of machinery in aid of the most complicated and abtruse calculations can no longer be deemed unworthy of the attention of the country. In fact, there is no reason why mental as well as bodily labor should not be economized by the aid of machinery. - Charles Babbage, Passage from the Life of a Philosopher | |
The power to destroy a planet is insignificant when compared to the power of the Force. - Darth Vader | |
If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better, and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health. - Sir Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble | |
How many surrealists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One to hold the giraffe and one to fill the bathtub with brightly colored power tools. | |
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is now in the American experience... We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications... We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence...by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. - Dwight D. Eisenhower, from his farewell address in 1961 | |
Spiritual leadership should remain spiritual leadership and the temporal power should not become too important in any church. - Eleanor Roosevelt | |
...One thing is that, unlike any other Western democracy that I know of, this country has operated since its beginnings with a basic distrust of government. We are constituted not for efficient operation of government, but for minimizing the possibility of abuse of power. It took the events of the Roosevelt era -- a catastrophic economic collapse and a world war -- to introduce the strong central government that we now know. But in most parts of the country today, the reluctance to have government is still strong. I think, barring a series of catastrophic events, that we can look to at least another decade during which many of the big problems around this country will have to be addressed by institutions other than federal government. - Bobby R. Inman, Admiral, USN, Retired, former director of Naval Intelligence, vice director of the DIA, former director of the NSA, deputy directory of Central Intelligence, former chairman and CEO of MCC. [the statist opinions expressed herein are not those of the cookie editor -ed.] | |
Absolute: Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the soverign's power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance. -- Ambrose Bierce | |
"Emergency!" Sgiggs screamed, ejecting himself from the tub like it was a burning car. "Dial 'one'! Get room service! Code red!" Stiggs was on the phone immediately, ordering more rose blossoms, because, according to him, the ones floating in the tub had suddenly lost their smell. "I demand smell," he shrilled. "I expecting total uninterrupted smell from these f*cking roses." Unfortunately, the service captain didn't realize that the Stiggs situation involved fifty roses. "What am I going to do with this?" Stiggs sneered at the weaseling hotel goon when he appeared at our door holding a single flower floating in a brandy glass. Stiggs's tirade was great. "Do you see this bathtub? Do you notice any difference between the size of the tub and the size of that spindly wad of petals in your hand? I need total bath coverage. I need a completely solid layer of roses all around me like puffing factories of smell, attacking me with their smell and power-ramming big stinking concentrations of rose odor up my nostrils until I'm wasted with pleasure." It wasn't long before we got so dissatisfied with this incompetence that we bolted. -- The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs, National Lampoon, October 1982 | |
"Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed." -- Robin, The Boy Wonder | |
Now, if the leaders of the world -- people who are leaders by virtue of political, military or financial power, and not necessarily wisdom or consideration for mankind -- if these leaders manage not to pull us over the brink into planetary suicide, despite their occasional pompous suggestions that they may feel obliged to do so, we may survive beyond 1988. -- George Rostky, EE Times, June 20, 1988 p. 45 | |
"An honest god is the noblest work of man. ... God has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. ... Most of the gods were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume." -- Robert G. Ingersoll | |
The spectacle of astrology in the White House -- the governing center of the world's greatest scientific and military power -- is so appalling that it defies understanding and provides grounds for great fright. The easiest response is to laugh it off, and to indulge in wisecracks about Civil Service ratings for horoscope makers and palm readers and whether Reagan asked Mikhail Gorbachev for his sign. A contagious good cheer is the hallmark of this presidency, even when the most dismal matters are concerned. But this time, it isn't funny. It's plain scary. -- Daniel S. Greenberg, Editor, _Science and Government Report_, writing in "Newsday", May 5, 1988 | |
With the news that Nancy Reagan has referred to an astrologer when planning her husband's schedule, and reports of Californians evacuating Los Angeles on the strength of a prediction from a sixteenth-century physician and astrologer Michel de Notredame, the image of the U.S. as a scientific and technological nation has taking a bit of a battering lately. Sadly, such happenings cannot be dismissed as passing fancies. They are manifestations of a well-established "anti-science" tendency in the U.S. which, ultimately, could threaten the country's position as a technological power. . . . The manifest widespread desire to reject rationality and substitute a series of quasirandom beliefs in order to understand the universe does not augur well for a nation deeply concerned about its ability to compete with its industrial equals. To the degree that it reflects the thinking of a significant section of the public, this point of view encourages ignorance of and, indeed, contempt for science and for rational methods of approaching truth. . . . It is becoming clear that if the U.S. does not pick itself up soon and devote some effort to educating the young effectively, its hope of maintaining a semblance of leadership in the world may rest, paradoxically, with a new wave of technically interested and trained immigrants who do not suffer from the anti-science disease rampant in an apparently decaying society. -- Physicist Tony Feinberg, in "New Scientist," May 19, 1988 | |
"The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs." -- Joseph Weizenbaum, _Computer Power and Human Reason_ | |
[May one] doubt whether, in cheese and timber, worms are generated, or, if beetles and wasps, in cow-dung, or if butterflies, locusts, shellfish, snails, eels, and such life be procreated of putrefied matter, which is to receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed[?] To question this is to question reason, sense, and experience. If he doubts this, let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice begot of the mud of the Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants. A seventeenth century opinion quoted by L. L. Woodruff, in *The Evolution of Earth and Man*, 1929 | |
"Lying lips are abomination to the Lord; but they that deal truly are his delight. A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger. He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. Be not a witness against thy neighbor without cause; and deceive not with thy lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue." -- Proverbs, some selections from the Jewish Scripture | |
"Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power tools aren't soluble in alcohol..." -- Crazy Nigel | |
"We dedicated ourselves to a powerful idea -- organic law rather than naked power. There seems to be universal acceptance of that idea in the nation." -- Supreme Court Justice Potter Steart | |
"Irrigation of the land with sewater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It's called 'rain'." -- Michael McClary, in alt.fusion | |
"We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of annihilation ever more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose for which they were invented." -- Albert Einstein, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September 1948 | |
Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -- P.J. O'Rourke | |
He is the best of men who dislikes power. -- Mohammed | |
Imbalance of power corrupts and monopoly of power corrupts absolutely. -- Genji | |
"Never underestimate the power of a small tactical nuclear weapon." | |
Perhaps the most widespread illusion is that if we were in power we would behave very differently from those who now hold it -- when, in truth, in order to get power we would have to become very much like them. (Lenin's fatal mistake, both in theory and in practice.) | |
Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat. -- John Lehman, Secretary of the Navy, 1981-1987 | |
Power is poison. | |
Power is the finest token of affection. | |
Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. -- Lord Acton | |
What I want is all of the power and none of the responsibility. | |
Beauty, n.: The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband. -- Ambrose Bierce | |
clairvoyant, n.: A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron -- namely, that he is a blockhead. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" | |
Economies of scale: The notion that bigger is better. In particular, that if you want a certain amount of computer power, it is much better to buy one biggie than a bunch of smallies. Accepted as an article of faith by people who love big machines and all that complexity. Rejected as an article of faith by those who love small machines and all those limitations. | |
Power, n.: The only narcotic regulated by the SEC instead of the FDA. | |
Responsibility: Everyone says that having power is a great responsibility. This is a lot of bunk. Responsibility is when someone can blame you if something goes wrong. When you have power you are surrounded by people whose job it is to take the blame for your mistakes. If they're smart, that is. -- Cerebus, "On Governing" | |
Wombat's Laws of Computer Selection: (1) If it doesn't run Unix, forget it. (2) Any computer design over 10 years old is obsolete. (3) Anything made by IBM is junk. (See number 2) (4) The minimum acceptable CPU power for a single user is a VAX/780 with a floating point accelerator. (5) Any computer with a mouse is worthless. -- Rich Kulawiec | |
Power Mist: The tendency of hierarchies in office environments to be diffuse and preclude crisp articulation. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
Jack-and-Jill Party: A Squire tradition; baby showers to which both men and women friends are invited as opposed to only women. Doubled purchasing power of bisexual attendance brings gift values up to Eisenhower-era standards. -- Douglas Coupland, "Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" | |
Do not underestimate the power of the Force. | |
Of course power tools and alcohol don't mix. Everyone knows power tools aren't soluble in alcohol... -- Crazy Nigel | |
Fortune's Guide to Freshman Notetaking: WHEN THE PROFESSOR SAYS: YOU WRITE: Probably the greatest quality of the poetry John Milton -- born 1608 of John Milton, who was born in 1608, is the combination of beauty and power. Few have excelled him in the use of the English language, or for that matter, in lucidity of verse form, 'Paradise Lost' being said to be the greatest single poem ever written." Current historians have come to Most of the problems that now doubt the complete advantageousness face the United States are of some of Roosevelt's policies... directly traceable to the bungling and greed of President Roosevelt. ... it is possible that we simply do Professor Mitchell is a not understand the Russian viewpoint... communist. | |
1 Billion dollars of budget deficit = 1 Gramm-Rudman 6.023 x 10 to the 23rd power alligator pears = Avocado's number 2 pints = 1 Cavort Basic unit of Laryngitis = The Hoarsepower Shortest distance between two jokes = A straight line 6 Curses = 1 Hexahex 3500 Calories = 1 Food Pound 1 Mole = 007 Secret Agents 1 Mole = 25 Cagey Bees 1 Dog Pound = 16 oz. of Alpo 1000 beers served at a Twins game = 1 Killibrew 2.4 statute miles of surgical tubing at Yale U. = 1 I.V.League 2000 pounds of chinese soup = 1 Won Ton 10 to the minus 6th power mouthwashes = 1 Microscope Speed of a tortoise breaking the sound barrier = 1 Machturtle 8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss 365 Days of drinking Lo-Cal beer. = 1 Lite-year 16.5 feet in the Twilight Zone = 1 Rod Serling Force needed to accelerate 2.2lbs of cookies = 1 Fig-newton to 1 meter per second One half large intestine = 1 Semicolon 10 to the minus 6th power Movie = 1 Microfilm 1000 pains = 1 Megahertz 1 Word = 1 Millipicture 1 Sagan = Billions & Billions 1 Angstrom: measure of computer anxiety = 1000 nail-bytes 10 to the 12th power microphones = 1 Megaphone 10 to the 6th power Bicycles = 2 megacycles The amount of beauty required launch 1 ship = 1 Millihelen | |
All power corrupts, but we need electricity. | |
Power corrupts. And atomic power corrupts atomically. | |
Solutions are obvious if one only has the optical power to observe them over the horizon. -- K.A. Arsdall | |
The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine. -- Ernest Rutherford, after he had split the atom for the first time | |
There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom. -- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923 | |
... we must be wary of granting too much power to natural selection by viewing all basic capacities of our brain as direct adaptations. I do not doubt that natural selection acted in building our oversized brains -- and I am equally confident that our brains became large as an adaptation for definite roles (probably a complex set of interacting functions). But these assumptions do not lead to the notion, often uncritically embraced by strict Darwinians, that all major capacities of the brain must arise as direct products of natural selection. -- S.J. Gould, "The Mismeasure of Man" | |
You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi. | |
I am changing my name to Chrysler I am going down to Washington, D.C. I will tell some power broker What they did for Iacocca Will be perfectly acceptable to me! I am changing my name to Chrysler, I am heading for that great receiving line. When they hand a million grand out, I'll be standing with my hand out, Yessir, I'll get mine! | |
Nature to all things fixed the limits fit, And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit. As on the land while here the ocean gains, In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains; Thus in the soul while memory prevails, The solid power of understanding fails; Where beams of warm imagination play, The memory's soft figures melt away. -- Alexander Pope (on runtime bounds checking?) | |
Oh, give me a locus where the gravitons focus Where the three-body problem is solved, Where the microwaves play down at three degrees K, And the cold virus never evolved. (chorus) We eat algea pie, our vacuum is high, Our ball bearings are perfectly round. Our horizon is curved, our warheads are MIRVed, And a kilogram weighs half a pound. (chorus) If we run out of space for our burgeoning race No more Lebensraum left for the Mensch When we're ready to start, we can take Mars apart, If we just find a big enough wrench. (chorus) I'm sick of this place, it's just McDonald's in space, And living up here is a bore. Tell the shiggies, "Don't cry," they can kiss me goodbye 'Cause I'm moving next week to L4! (chorus) CHORUS: Home, home on LaGrange, Where the space debris always collects, We possess, so it seems, two of Man's greatest dreams: Solar power and zero-gee sex. -- to Home on the Range | |
Once again dread deed is done. Canon sleeps, his all-knowing eye shaded to human chance and circumstance. Peace reigns anew o'er Pine Valley, but Canon's sleep is troubled. Beware, scant days past the Ides of July. Impatient hands wait eagerly to grasp, to hold scant moments of time wrested from life in the full glory of Canon's power; held captive by his unblinking eye. Three golden orbs stand watch; one each to toll the day, hour, minute until predestiny decrees his reawakening. When that feared moment arives, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee." -- "I extended the loan on your Camera, at the Pine Valley Pawn Shop today" | |
Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whate'er it touches... -- Percy Bysshe Shelley | |
Scratch the disks, dump the core, Shut it down, pull the plug Roll the tapes across the floor, Give the core an extra tug And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. Teletypes smashed to bits. Mem'ry cards, one and all, Give the scopes some nasty hits Toss out halfway down the hall And the system is going to crash. And the system is going to crash. And we've also found Just flip one switch When you turn the power down, And the lights will cease to twitch You turn the disk readers into trash. And the tape drives will crumble in a flash. Oh, it's so much fun, When the CPU Now the CPU won't run Can print nothing out but "foo," And the system is going to crash. The system is going to crash. -- To the tune of "As the Caissons go Rolling Along" | |
Wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us. -- R. Burns | |
You have the power to influence all with whom you come in contact. | |
Since before the Earth was formed and before the sun burned hot in space, cosmic forces of inexorable power have been working relentlessly toward this moment in space-time -- your receiving this fortune. | |
"Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth." "Or by misleading the innocent." -- Spock and McCoy, "And The Children Shall Lead", stardate 5029.5. | |
I object to intellect without discipline; I object to power without constructive purpose. -- Spock, "The Squire of Gothos", stardate 2124.5 | |
Power is danger. -- The Centurion, "Balance of Terror", stardate 1709.2 | |
The only solution is ... a balance of power. We arm our side with exactly that much more. A balance of power -- the trickiest, most difficult, dirtiest game of them all. But the only one that preserves both sides. -- Kirk, "A Private Little War", stardate 4211.8 | |
Uncontrolled power will turn even saints into savages. And we can all be counted on to live down to our lowest impulses. -- Parmen, "Plato's Stepchildren", stardate 5784.3 | |
"What happened to the crewman?" "The M-5 computer needed a new power source, the crewman merely got in the way." -- Kirk and Dr. Richard Daystrom, "The Ultimate Computer", stardate 4731.3. | |
"A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!" -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra" | |
Last night the power went out. Good thing my camera had a flash.... The neighbors thought it was lightning in my house, so they called the cops. -- Steven Wright | |
The Three Major Kind of Tools * Tools for hittings things to make them loose or to tighten them up or jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a manner that they function perfectly. (These are your hammers, maces, bludgeons, and truncheons.) * Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot. (Awls) * Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far greater than the value of any project that could possibly result. (Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.) -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw" | |
In 1968 it took the computing power of 2 C-64's to fly a rocket to the moon. Now, in 1998 it takes the Power of a Pentium 200 to run Microsoft Windows 95. Something must have gone wrong. | |
Microsoft seems to have gotten a lot of mileage out of the C2 rating for NT with no network connection. I wonder if a B3 rating for Linux with no power cord might be of value. | |
Increased Electricity Consumption Blamed on Linux WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The US Department of Energy claims Linux is partially responsible for the increased demand for electricity during the past year. Electricity use was up 2.5% from January to September of 1998 compared with the same period in 1997. "While some of the increase can be attributed to higher temperatures over the summer," one Department bureaucrat explained, "Linux is certainly a contributor to the increased demand for power." When asked for clarification, the bureaucrat responded, "In the past, most PCs have been turned off when not in use. Linux users, on the other hand, usually don't turn off their computers. They leave them on, hoping to increase their uptime to impress their friends. And since Linux rarely crashes the entire system, those computers stay on for weeks, months, even years at a time. With Linux use continuing to grow, we expect demand for electricity to increase steadily over the next several years." In response to the news, several utility companies have announced plans to give away free Linux CDs to paying customers who request them. One anonymous executive said, "The more people who use Linux, the more power they consume. The more electricity they use, the more money we make. It's a win-win combination." Yesterday Linus Torvalds was nominated as a candidate for the Assocation of American Utility Companies Person of the Year. | |
Linux Ported to Homer Simpson's Brain SPRINGFIELD -- Slashdot recently reported on Homer Simpson's brain "upgrade" to an Intel CPU. Intel hails the CPU transplant as the "World's Greatest Technological Achievement". Intel originally planned to install Microsoft Windows CE (Cerebrum Enhanced) on Homer's new PentiumBrain II processor. However, due to delays in releasing Windows CE, Intel decided to install DebianBrain Linux, the new Linux port for brains. Computer industry pundits applaud the last minute switch from Windows to Linux. One said, "I was a bit concerned for Homer. With Windows CE, I could easily imagine Homer slipping into an infinite loop: "General Protection Fault. D'oh! D'oh! D'oh! D'oh..." Or, at the worst, the Blue Screen of Death could have become much more than a joke." Some pundits are more concerned about the quality of the Intel CPU. "Linux is certainly an improvement over Windows. But since it's running on a PentiumBrain chip, all bets are off. What if the chip miscalculates the core temperature of the power plant where Homer works? I can just imagine the story on the evening news: 'Springfield was obliterated into countless subatomic particles yesterday because Homer J. Simpson, power plant button-pusher, accidentally set the core temperature to 149.992322340948290 instead of 150...' If anything, an Alpha chip running Linux should have been used for Homer's new brain." | |
Humorix Holiday Gift Idea #3 iTux Penguin Computer Price: $999.95 for base model Producer: Orange Computer, Co.; 1-800-GET-ITUX Based on the Slashdot comments, response to the Apple iMac from the Linux community was lukewarm at best. Orange Computer, Co., has picked up where Apple left behind and produced the iTux computer specifically for Linux users who want to "Think a lot different". The self-contained iTux computer system is built in the shape of Tux the Penguin. Its 15 inch monitor (17 inch available next year) is located at Tux's large belly. The penguin's two feet make up the split ergonomic keyboard (without those annoying Windows keys, of course). A 36X CD-ROM drive fits into Tux's mouth. Tux's left eye is actually the reboot button (can be reconfigured for other purposes since it is rarely used) and his right eye is the power button. The iTux case opens up from the back, allowing easy access for screwdriver-wielding nerds into Tux's guts. The US$995.95 model contains an Alpha CPU and all the usual stuff found in a Linux-class machine. More expensive models, to be debuted next year, will feature dual or quad Alpha CPUs and a larger size. | |
Jargon Coiner (#3) An irregular feature that aims to give you advance warning of new jargon that we've just made up. * LILOSPLAININ': Arduous process of explaining why there's now a LILO boot prompt on the office computer. Example: "John had some lilosplainin' to do after his boss turned on the computer and the Windows splash screen didn't appear." * UPTIME DOWNER: Depression that strikes a Linux sysadmin after his uptime is ruined. Can be caused by an extended power outtage, a pet chewing through the power cord, a lightning bolt striking the power line, or an urgent need to reboot into Windows to read a stupid Word document. * OSTR (Off-Switch Total Recall): The sudden recollection of something terribly important you need to do online that occurs exactly 0.157 seconds after you've shut down your computer. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#9) Edison's most important invention One of Thomas Edison's most profound inventions was that of patent litigation. Edison used his many patents on motion pictures to monopolize the motion picture industry. One could argue that Edison was an early pioneer for the business tactics employed by Microsoft and the MPAA. Indeed, Edison's company, the Motion Picture Patent Company (MPPC), formed in 1908, bears a striking resemblance to the modern-day Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Similar initials, different people, same evil. The MPCC, with the help of hired thugs, ensured that all motion picture producers paid tribute to Edison and played by his rules. The MPAA, with the help of hired lawyers, ensures that all motion picture producers pay tribute and play by their rules. Ironically, filmmakers that found themselves facing Edison patent litigation (or worse) fled to Texas, California, and Mexico. Those same filmmakers outlasted Edison's monopoly and eventually banded together to form the MPAA! History has a tendency to repeat itself; so it seems likely that today's DVD lawsuit victims may well come to power in the future -- and soon become the evil establishment, thus completing another cycle. | |
Brief History Of Linux (#26) On the surface, Transmeta was a secretive startup that hired Linus Torvalds in 1996 as their Alpha Geek to help develop some kind of microprocessor. Linus, everyone found out later, was actually hired as part of a low-budget yet high-yield publicity stunt. While other dotcoms were burning millions on glitzy marketing campaigns nobody remembers and Superbowl ads displayed while jocks went to the bathroom, Transmeta was spending only pocket change on marketing. Most of that pocket change went towards hosting the Transmeta website (the one that wasn't there yet) which, incidentally, contained more original content and received more visitors than the typical dotcom portal. Microsoft relies on vaporware and certain ahem stipends given to journalists in order to generate buzz and hype for new products, but Transmeta only needed Non-Disclosure Agreements and the Personality Cult of Linus to build up its buzz. When the secret was finally unveiled, the Slashdot crowd was all excited about low-power mobile processors and code-morphing algorithms -- for a couple days. Then everyone yawned and went back to playing Quake. It's still not entirely clear when Transmeta is actually supposed to start selling something. | |
Clippit Charged With Attempted Murder Microsoft's Dancing Paper Clip turned violent last week and nearly killed a university student testing a new Windows-based human-computer interface. The victim is expected to make a full recovery, although psychiatrists warn that the incident may scar him emotionally for life. "You can bet this kid won't be using Windows or Office ever again," said one shrink. The victim had been alpha-testing CHUG (Computer-Human Unencumbered Groupware), a new interface in which the user controls the computer with force-feedback gloves and voice activation. "I was trying to write a term paper in Word," he said from his hospital bed. "But then that damned Dancing Paper Clip came up and started annoying me. I gave it the middle finger. It reacted by deleting my document, at which point I screamed at it and threatened to pull the power cord. I didn't get a chance; the force-feedback gloves started choking me." "We told Clippit it had the right to remain silent, and so on," said a campus police officer. "The paperclip responded, 'Hi, I'm Clippit, the Office Assistant. Would you like to create a letter?' I said, 'Look here, Mr. Paperclip. You're being charged with attempted murder.' At that point the computer bluescreened." | |
All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power. -- Ashleigh Brilliant | |
Any man can work when every stroke of his hand brings down the fruit rattling from the tree to the ground; but to labor in season and out of season, under every discouragement, by the power of truth -- that requires a heroism which is transcendent. -- Henry Ward Beecher | |
Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; always busy without getting on, always behind hand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity; dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, and whether helping, or reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power of engaging their respect. -- J. Austen | |
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -- Abraham Lincoln | |
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. | |
Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear, and despair -- these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair. So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man, and from the Infinite, so long you are young. -- Samuel Ullman | |
Do one thing and do it well. - Andrew Grover, ACPI maintainer on Linux-power. | |
We could be way simpler if we didn't try to be so flexible. - Andrew Grover, ACPI maintainer on Linux-power. | |
ACPI - it's too late to improve it - it's the standard - Andrew Grover, ACPI maintainer on Linux-power. | |
... but giving people the power to do even silly things is what Linux is all about. - Linus Torvalds on linux-kernel | |
In the same world where Vomit-Making System is elegant, SGI "designs" are and NT is The Wave Of Future(tm). Pardon me, but I'll stay in our universe and away from the drugs of such power. - Al Viro on linux-kernel | |
Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Tao, Counsel him not to use force to conquer the universe. For this would only cause resistance. Thorn bushes spring up wherever the army has passed. Lean years follow in the wake of a great war. Just do what needs to be done. Never take advantage of power. Achieve results, But never glory in them. Achieve results, But never boast. Achieve results, But never be proud. Achieve results, Because this is the natural way. Achieve results, But not through violence. Force is followed by loss of strength. This is not the way of Tao. That which goes against the Tao comes to an early end. | |
Ruling the country is like cooking a small fish. Approach the universe with Tao, And evil is not powerful, But its power will not be used to harm others. Not only will it do no harm to others, But the sage himself will also be protected. They do not hurt each other, And the Virtue in each one refreshes both. | |
What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few of us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once were, long before formal education ever got its claws into you -- that impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can't get enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit till at last your eyes are closed and all the fools say, "Doesn't he look peaceful?" It is those pent-up, craving children who make all the wars and all the horrors and all the art and all the beauty and discovery in life, because they are trying to achieve what lay beyond their grasp before they were five years old. -- Robertson Davies, "The Rebel Angels" | |
"In the event of a percieved failing of the project leadership #debian is empowered to take drastic and descisive action to correct the failing, including by not limited to expelling officials, apointing new officials and generally abusing power" -- proposed amendment to Debian Constitution | |
<doogie> Debian - All the power, without the silly hat. | |
<MrCurious> by the power of greyskull <MrCurious> someone tell me the ban to place <Sopwith> mrcurious: *.debian.org, *.novare.net <philX> *.debian.org. that's awesome. -- Seen on LinuxNet #linux | |
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. -- Robert A. Heinlein | |
Never underestimate the power of somebody with source code, a text editor, and the willingness to totally hose their system. -- Rob Landley <telomerase@yahoo.com> | |
innovate /IN no vait/ vb.: 1. To appropriate third-party technology through purchase, imitation, or theft and to integrate it into a de-facto, monopoly-position product. 2. To increase in size or complexity but not in utility; to reduce compatibility or interoperability. 3. To lock-out competitors or to lock-in users. 4. To charge more money; to increase prices or costs. 5. To acquire profits from investments in other companies but not from direct product or service sales. 6. To stifle or manipulate a free market; to extend monopoly powers into new markets. 7. To evade liability for wrong-doings; to get off. 8. To purchase legislation, legislators, legislatures, or chiefs of state. 9. To mediate all transactions in a global economy; to embezzle; to co-opt power (coup d'état). Cf. innovate, English usage (antonym). -- csbruce, in a Slashdot post | |
<markm> c++: the power, elegance and simplicity of a hand grenade | |
<Mercury> Knghtbrd: Hey, perl has the power grace and elegance of a sledge hammer. (=:] <|Rain|> certainly the grace and elegance, anyway | |
## a_nick (nobody@c213-89-87-111.cm-upc.chello.se) has joined #python <a_nick> how do i add a new key to a dictionary? <a_nick> nm <dash> heh :) <dash> behold the problem-solving power of #python. | |
A Scholar asked his Master, "Master, would you advise me of a proper vocation?" The Master replied, "Some men can earn their keep with the power of their minds. Others must use thier strong backs, legs and hands. This is the same in nature as it is with man. Some animals acquire their food easily, such as rabbits, hogs and goats. Other animals must fiercely struggle for their sustenance, like beavers, moles and ants. So you see, the nature of the vocation must fit the individual. "But I have no abilities, desires, or imagination, Master," the scholar sobbed. Queried the Master... "Have you thought of becoming a salesperson?" | |
...He who laughs does not believe in what he laughs at, but neither does he hate it. Therefore, laughing at evil means not preparing oneself to combat it, and laughing at good means denying the power through which good is self-propagating. -- Umberto Eco, "The Name of the Rose" | |
You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. -- R. Bach, "Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul" | |
By golly, I'm beginning to think Linux really *is* the best thing since sliced bread. -- Vance Petree, Virginia Power | |
I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you. -- Vance Petree, Virginia Power | |
How do you power off this machine? -- Linus, when upgrading linux.cs.helsinki.fi, and after using the machine for several months | |
Ha. I say let them try -- even vi+perl couldn't match the power of an editor which is, after all, its own OS. ;-) -- Johnie Ingram on debian-devel, about linking vim with libperl.so | |
* liw prefers not to have Linus run Debian, because then /me would have to run Red Hat, just to keep the power balance :) -- #Debian | |
... before I could come to any conclusion it occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility. What did it matter what anyone knew or ignored? What did it matter who was manager? One gets sometimes such a flash of insight. The essentials of this affair lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my power of meddling. -- Joseph Conrad | |
Mental power tended to corrupt, and absolute intelligence tended to corrupt absolutely, until the victim eschewed violence entirely in favor of smart solutions to stupid problems. -- Piers Anthony | |
They are fools that think that wealth or women or strong drink or even drugs can buy the most in effort out of the soul of a man. These things offer pale pleasures compared to that which is greatest of them all, that task which demands from him more than his utmost strength, that absorbs him, bone and sinew and brain and hope and fear and dreams -- and still calls for more. They are fools that think otherwise. No great effort was ever bought. No painting, no music, no poem, no cathedral in stone, no church, no state was ever raised into being for payment of any kind. No parthenon, no Thermopylae was ever built or fought for pay or glory; no Bukhara sacked, or China ground beneath Mongol heel, for loot or power alone. The payment for doing these things was itself the doing of them. To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food spread only for demons or for gods." -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not" | |
How do you explain Wayne Newton's POWER over millions? It's th' MOUSTACHE ... Have you ever noticed th' way it radiates SINCERITY, HONESTY & WARMTH? It's a MOUSTACHE you want to take HOME and introduce to NANCY SINATRA! | |
I have the power to HALT PRODUCTION on all TEENAGE SEX COMEDIES!! | |
It is a well known fact that warriors and wizards do not get along, because one side considers the other side to be a collection of bloodthirsty idiots who can't walk and think at the same time, while the other side is naturally suspicious of a body of men who mumble a lot and wear long dresses. Oh, say the wizards, if we're going to be like that, then, what about all those studded collars and oiled muscles down at the Young Men's Pagan Association? To which the heroes reply, that's a pretty good allegation from a bunch of wimpsoes who won't go near a woman on account, can you believe it, of their mystical power being sort of drained out. Right, say the wizards, that just about does it, you and your leather posing pouches. Oh yeah, say the the heroes, why don't you ... -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic" | |
Knowledge is power -- knowledge shared is power lost. -- Aleister Crowley | |
[From an announcement of a congress of the International Ontopsychology Association, in Rome]: The Ontopsychological school, availing itself of new research criteria and of a new telematic epistemology, maintains that social modes do not spring from dialectics of territory or of class, or of consumer goods, or of means of power, but rather from dynamic latencies capillarized in millions of individuals in system functions which, once they have reached the event maturation, burst forth in catastrophic phenomenology engaging a suitable stereotype protagonist or duty marionette (general, president, political party, etc.) to consummate the act of social schizophrenia in mass genocide. | |
If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better, and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health. -- Sir Peter Medawar, "The Art of the Soluble" |